(Reuters) – Australia coach Tony Gustavsson has no plans to alter his tactical approach despite seeing his Matildas side slip to a heavy loss at the hands of the United States on Saturday.
Gustavsson’s team were a goal down inside the first minute before going on to lose 3-0 to the reigning world champions in a game played in front of a record crowd for a women’s game at Stadium Australia.
“We are not going to change the way we play,” said Gustavsson after the first of two games against the Americans this week.
“This is who we are, this is what we’re about, and we need to learn to do it better. We need to do that against the best teams because that is when you get exposed.
“If you don’t play against the best teams you might not get exposed to those kind of scenarios. So there’s going to be a lot of learnings tonight in terms of that.”
Defensive hesitancy handed Ashley Hatch the opportunity to give the United States the lead after 24 seconds before second half goals from Rose Lavelle and Lindsey Horan sealed the win for the visitors in front of a crowd of 36,109.
The loss was a set back for Gustavsson and his team a month after securing a win and a draw against Brazil as the Australians prepare for the country co-hosting the Women’s World Cup with New Zealand in 2023.
The Australians meet the Americans again on Tuesday with Gustavsson and his players looking to build towards January’s Women’s Asian Cup finals, which will held in India.
“I have the belief in this process, but I also know that we have to improve,” he said.
“Even if we say World Cup ’23 is far away, we have an Asian Cup coming up and we want to win that, so we have improvement to do in the short term as well.
“I hope we can take learnings from tonight and show some improvements in the game on Tuesday.”
(Reporting by Michael Church; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
